


Lottery, Library

by key



Series: Unmake, Remake [4]
Category: Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/key/pseuds/key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack takes Ben out for Chinese...sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lottery, Library

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Current mood:**|   
pleased  
---|---  
**Current music:**|   
_Chinese Disco_ by **Shonen Knife**  
  
**Entry tags:**| [luau 2009: fic](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/tag/luau+2009:+fic)  
  
**Title:** Lottery, Library  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters:** Jack, Ben, Richard, Jacob, Hurley  
**Word Count:** 2260  
**Spoilers**: All seasons, follows fics [Unmake, Remake](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/560642.html), [Rerun, Revenge](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/567507.html), and [Vacation, Variation](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/572108.html) **  
Summary:** Jack takes Ben out for Chinese...sort of.  
**Author's Notes: **More Jack for

[](http://alliecat8.livejournal.com/profile)[**alliecat8**](http://alliecat8.livejournal.com/)  at [](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/profile)[**lostsquee**](http://community.livejournal.com/lostsquee/)'s Luau, now that I stopped being distracted by shiny things long enough to finish it!

 

 

Generally, chasing a white rabbit was a metaphor for something else. The Island had apparently decided Jack was due a little literalism.

"Stop her! Stop...!"

Jack picked up a wooden box—it was good enough for a crab, the rabbit could make do—and jumped forward, sliding on the sand but trapping the rabbit inside. It took Jack a moment to place the man chasing the rabbit, since Benjamin Linus looked years younger than Jack had ever seen him as an adult.

"I just sat the bag down for a second and Boudicca hopped off—I was afraid I'd never catch her," Ben reached under the box, grabbed the rabbit and stuffed it into his satchel. "Thank you...are...are you Jacob?" Ben nervously clutched the strap on his bag.

"Definitely not. I work for him though—I'm Jack Shephard." _He's more timid than the rabbit_, Jack thought.

"Ben! Ben!" Richard yelled from inside the jungle.

Jack watched Ben grimace, then mutter to himself, "He treats me like a five year old."

_Probably because you act like one_, "Well, aren't you going to tell him you're here?"

Ben sighed, then called out, "Over here!"

An irritated Richard emerged from the foliage, glaring at Ben, "Why did you bring the rabbit anyway?"

"I couldn't just leave her behind—Danny said he would eat her!" Ben defended.

Jack cleared his throat to get their attention, "Sorry to interrupt, but are you only here about the rabbit? I've got to be going soon—"

"—which is why I asked Richard to bring Benjamin with him, Jack," Jacob walked out from behind Jack, startling all three of them.

"What do you mean?" Jack eyed Jacob suspiciously.

"Benjamin wants to get new books for the children, he'll need to go off the Island to do it," Jacob sat down, using the wooden box for a seat.

Richard seemed ready to protest, when Ben spoke, "I never gave Richard the letter I wrote about the books—how did you know?"

"The same way I know that you asked Jack if he was me," Jacob smiled.

"Jacob, we've talked about this, I don't know if he's ready for the responsibility--" Richard began.

Jacob cut him off, "_This_ isn't your decision to make, Richard."

Ben looked back and forth between them, bewildered, "What's the problem? I haven't been off the Island in a long time, but I'm sure I can do it."

"Do you remember the first time you met Richard, Benjamin?" Jacob asked.

"I followed my mother to the boundary, and she disappeared... then I saw Richard," he recalled, wondering why Jacob wanted to know.

"Richard came to me after that. Seeing her made you special Benjamin, you were to take Eloise's place one day," Jacob said, though Richard looked more alarmed with every syllable.

"But...Eloise has been gone for years. Richard said it wasn't time for a new leader yet," Ben gave Richard a suspicious look.

Richard tried to placate him, "I didn't want you to have to deal with the pressure of leadership on top of everything else. I just think you should give it more time, Ben."

"I'm not a kid anymore! How much more time is there? Not all of us have stopped aging, Richard," Ben responded bitterly.

Jack watched them argue with open curiosity. He knew that Ben hadn't been shot by Sayid, since none of that had ever happened except in his memory. How had Ben still ended up with the Others?

"Benjamin, you can fight with Richard later if you have a mind to. I need to know if you want to go with Jack—leaving this place is a time sensitive operation," Jacob blocked Richard from making another objection.

"I... If somebody can take care of Boudicca for me, I'm ready to go," Ben's eyes darted from Jacob to Jack, avoiding Richard altogether.

Jacob handed Ben a fortune cookie wrapped in cellophane, "Pass that over to Jack would you?"

Ben scrunched his nose up at the odd instruction, but did it anyway. Jack reached out to take it and as the plastic touched his fingers, they had been transported to another place.

"Where are we?" Ben asked as he patted his satchel, finding it bunny-less.

"Santa Monica. We need to go," Jack motioned to a Chinese restaurant, " in there. I've got something to take care of before we get your books," at least Jack assumed that was what Jacob had in mind.

If Ben had ever been inside a Chinese restaurant, he didn't remember it. He wandered inside following Jack, still dazed from their sudden travel. Ben stared at everything—the people, the decorations, the unfamiliar food.

"Ben?" Jack tried to get his attention, but Ben was staring at an overblown painting of a dragon. Jack put a hand on Ben's shoulder to get his attention, and he jumped at the touch.

"W-What?" Ben pulled back as if he'd been burned.

Jack inclined his head towards an impatient hostess holding a pair of menus in her hands, "We've got to get to our table, come on."

Ben followed reluctantly, sat down across from Jack, and took a menu from the hostess who seemed to want to be anywhere else but at their table. Jack ordered hot tea for them both, and left Ben to figure out the menu on his own. He'd read about plenty of these things, and had vague recollection of a few from the DHARMA cafeteria. Ben decided he would order a soup and an entree, hoping he'd at least find one palatable.

After the waitress took their orders, there was an uneasy silence between them. Jack had held off as long as he could, "What's the deal with you and Richard...uh, if you don't mind me asking."

Ben squirmed in his seat. It wasn't something he wanted to talk about, but Jacob had sent him here with Jack, and if Ben couldn't trust Jacob he couldn't trust anyone. "I had met Richard before, but I wasn't supposed to leave the DHARMA people yet. One day Richard was checking the boundary lines to make sure nobody had crossed where they weren't allowed. He found me across the line, I was hurt pretty badly."

"Did you fall or something?" Jack could picture a smaller Ben climbing the pylons pretty easily.

Ben gave a humorless laugh, "On my Father's fist, repeatedly." Jack blanched and Ben resumed his story, "Dad was so drunk he thought he'd killed me, so he dragged me to a spot in the fence he had an override code for and left me there. I heard a couple years later he killed himself, but forgive me if I'm not all that sympathetic." Ben sipped his tea, "Anyway, Richard. Charles Widmore made it no secret he didn't want me there when Richard brought me back, which wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't been sleeping with Eloise. I think Richard felt guilty or something, because he completely blew up at Charles. He said he'd adopt me if that was what it took, and no matter how Charles plotted he'd never be the leader—despite what Eloise said. He's been extremely overprotective ever since."

Jack was glad for the respite of the waitress delivering food to the table. He'd wanted to know, and now he didn't know what to say to Ben. _Hey, at least you aren't a sociopathic murderer?_ That might not go down well. Jack watched Ben cautiously sample the spicy pork dish he'd ordered, and tried not to laugh when he downed three entire cups of tea to stop the burning, then resume eating as if nothing had happened.

Jack attempted to find a safe topic, "What do you do if you aren't in charge of the Others?"

"Others?" Ben gave Jack a blank look, "My people, I guess you mean. I teach English, Latin, and Literature. Education is important, Jack, especially when you're as isolated as we are."

Jack could imagine Ben hovering impatiently over some hapless student, "Is that why you were after books?"

"Mostly, yes. The tropical climate is especially terrible on glue bound books—the ones DHARMA had are all falling apart." Ben switched over to his egg drop soup, "I repair the ones I can, but there haven't been enough to go around in a long time."

Jack nodded and turned to his own plate of spicy noodles, "Do you want to be the leader, or would you rather keep teaching?"

"I'd like to do both, but I don't know how everyone will take me being in charge. Richard means well, but most of them probably think I'm incompetent since he won't let me do anything," Ben frowned into his bowl.

"I don't know what to tell you, Ben. My leadership experience hasn't been good for me or anyone else," Jack tried to rein in his self-loathing.

"But, you work for Jacob, right?" Ben asked.

"I do now--I used to be a doctor. My life from before is gone." _Never existed, if you wanted to be technical about it. "_I like to think I'm good at what I do, but ultimately the choices are with other people, and I'm happier for it."

"What exactly do you do though?" Ben asked.

Jack smiled at him, "Well, you'll get to see soon enough. Finish your dinner, people are starving in other countries."

Ben rolled his eyes at Jack but did what he was told. Jack kept looking at his watch, Ben guessed he was waiting for the bill, but when the waitress brought it along with some fortune cookies, Jack ignored them and looked down the aisle impatiently. Ben opened his fortune cookie:

_**Opportunity is knocking at your front door. **_  
_Lucky Numbers: 3, 7, 12, 17, 26, 48_

Ben scowled down at the paper—he didn't have a front door, he had a tent flap. He almost missed Jack getting up, but Ben caught the motion from the corner of his eye. Jack stumbled out in front of the largest man Ben had ever seen.

"Come on, dude! Watch where you're goin', I almost lost my Tso's!" He shifted the take out containers to his other hand.

"I'm sorry about that. Oh, wait a second, you dropped a fortune cookie," Jack handed the man the fortune cookie he'd gotten from Jacob.

"I'm not really mad or nothin', I just don't want to make Libby wait. Thanks, dude," he waved his free hand as he headed to the exit.

"No problem, Hurley," Jack whispered as soon as he was out of earshot.

"What was that about?" Ben asked, baffled.

"Just doing my job," Jack gave him a halfhearted smile. "If you're done I'll pay for this, and we can go get your books."

Ben was feeling more lost than ever, but he felt a little better when they got to the bookstore. They hadn't been given any limitations, so Jack told him to get anything he wanted. Ben intended to take shameless advantage of this, as he doubted he'd have an opportunity like it again any time soon.

As the books piled up, Jack wondered if he should have given Ben a limit of some kind. He didn't know how they'd get it all to a hotel, let alone all the way to the Island. "Maybe we should just move the entire store," Jack said sarcastically as Ben returned yet again will another pile of books.

"Do you think we could?" Ben asked without a trace of irony.

A truck rental later, they drove to a hotel for the evening, and Ben only carried a single arm load inside for the night.

"Why is there luggage here? We didn't bring anything," Ben examined the one tagged with his name, and was surprised that it actually had his clothes inside.

"Don't you have reading to do?" Jack deflected, and left to shower and change clothes. He regretted saying so later, as Ben seemed to have decided he would read all night. Jack covered his head with a pillow to block out the light so he could get some sleep. It seemed like only minutes later he was roughly shaken awake, "What?"

"Jack, look! That guy's on television!" Ben pulled Jack over towards the TV.

Jack rubbed his eyes, that was Hurley all right, "Did you sleep at all?"

"Who cares? Hugo Reyes won $156 million by playing the numbers from a fortune cookie. That's a lot of books, Jack!" Ben said, exasperated.

"If you don't like the ones you have we can take them back," Jack replied mildly.

Ben wondered if you could develop high blood pressure in a single day off the Island, "That's not... Why did Jacob make you give that to him?"

"I didn't have to give it to him, I wanted to. He didn't have to play the numbers either, he wanted to. You wondered what I did for Jacob, well, this is it." Jack waited for another question, but Ben seemed to be stunned into silence. "If that was all, I'm going back to sleep," he crawled back beneath the covers and did so, leaving Ben to wonder what _he_ would have to do for Jacob.


End file.
